economic and political collaboration in Western
Europe. In June 1947, General George Marshall,
the American secretary of state, delivered his
famous address at Harvard promising American aid
on condition that the European nations coordi-
nated their planning. His proposal was welcomed
in France, and Anglo-French agreement on how to
proceed followed speedily. On the initiative of the
French and British foreign ministers, Bidault and
Bevin, the European nations were invited to a con-
ference in Paris with the purpose of formulating
their responses to Marshall’s offer. West Germany
was included in Marshall’s Plan for European eco-
nomic cooperation (theoretically the German
Eastern zone, all the nations under Soviet control
and the Soviet Union were likewise included, but
they were expected to reject the conditions of aid).
Acceptance of Marshall Aid was as essential for
France as it was for the other Western nations if
recovery was to be accelerated. The Plan also held
out the hope that Western Europe might one day
be better able to maintain its independence from
US influence. De Gaulle realised this as quickly as
anyone and the Gaullists called for a European
Union based on a federation of states. Although
their motivation and aims of policy were by no
means identical, the US, Britain and France found
their policies converging in 1947. Britain still saw
itself as separate from continental Europe but also
favoured a strengthening of the Western continen-
tal states through collaboration.
Thus, despite earlier differences, perhaps the
most significant outcome of the early post-war
years was not only the recovery of France, but the
drawing together of Western Europe under
Anglo-French leadership with firm US support.
The shape of the future Western Europe and the
broad Atlantic economic partnership had begun
to emerge in 1947. The shocks of the crisis years
1947 and 1948, the coup in Czechoslovakia and
the Berlin blockade, created a sense of common
danger which reinforced these ties, but Britain,
having first provided a strong impetus, was to
draw back from closer economic cooperation with
the beginnings of West European integration in
the 1950s.